You and your employees may be getting back from vacation, but cybercriminals never take a break. In fact, studies from vendors like ProofPoint and Check Point show that phishing attacks actually spike during the summer months—especially in August. Here’s why, and what you can do to stay protected.

Why The Increased Risk

Hackers use your summer travel bug to their advantage by impersonating hotel and Airbnb websites, says Check Point Research. They’ve uncovered a sharp increase in cyberthreats related to the travel industry—specifically, a 55% increase in new vacation-related website domains in May 2025, compared to May 2024. Out of more than 39,000 domains registered, 1 in every 21 was flagged as either malicious or suspicious.

August is also back-to-school time, which means a rise in phishing attempts imitating legitimate university e-mails, targeting both students and staff. While these threats might not affect your industry directly, there’s always a chance that employees pursuing their master’s degree or planning a vacation will check their personal e-mail on their work computer. It takes only one wrong click to give cybercriminals access to your entire business network.

What To Do About It

While AI is making cybersecurity stronger and workflows smoother, it’s also helping attackers create more convincing phishing scams. That’s why it’s critical to educate yourself and your team on what to look for, to avoid clicking on a malicious link.

Safety tips to prevent attacks:

• Watch for suspicious e-mails. Don’t only check for misspellings and poorly formatted sentences in the body of e-mails; AI can write e-mails for attackers just like it can for you. Also examine the e-mail address of the sender and the text of the link itself, if visible, to make sure everything looks legitimate.
• Double-check URLs. Misspellings in the link text or unusual domain endings, like .today or .info, can be an indicator of an attack. Domain endings like these are often used in scam sites.
• Visit websites directly. It’s always better to search for the website yourself rather than clicking on links in any messages or e-mails.
• Enable Multifactor Authentication (MFA). Setting up MFA ensures that even if a breach does occur within your company, your login credentials will remain protected – and so will any data secured behind them.
• Be careful with public WiFi. If you need to use public WiFi, use a VPN for additional protection when accessing secure information, like booking portals or bank accounts.
• Don’t access personal e-mail on company devices. Accessing personal e-mail, messaging, or social media accounts on business devices increases your risk. Keep personal accounts on your personal devices and work-related accounts on the work devices.
• Ask your MSP about endpoint security. Endpoint detection and response (EDR) software monitor all your devices, detect and block phishing attempts and malicious downloads, and alert your MSP immediately in the event of a breach, drastically limiting your data’s exposure.

Stay Ahead of the Phishing Attacks This Season

Phishing attacks are becoming more advanced every day—and AI is only speeding up that trend. That’s why it’s critical to keep your team informed and alert. When everyone knows what to watch for, your business stays safer.

Awareness is your strongest line of defense. Stay informed and stay secure.

Stay secure this season—book your FREE Cybersecurity Assessment today.